Jul 03 2008
Hanging Your Hard Hat Downtown
Some of the things that high energy and transportation costs cause us to re-think is just how far from work we want to live. It was cheap gas, factory jobs and the automobile that gave us the first suburbs. As time went on the burbs moved farther and farther out from city centers until many of them began running into each other and creating a whole new phenomenon called bedroom communities. In the meantime people were driving further and further to get to the nine-to-five.
Eventually many of the once-thriving downtown and mid-town areas simply fell into disrepair, until people started to ask questions about what they might be good for in a new era.
Communities often have a lot of trouble revitalizing and re-developing their inner city areas but one thing more of them are recognizing is things are a lot closer together in the center of town and that bodes well for making it less expensive to get people from place to place.
Vermont has been on a long-term revitalization process and part of that is called the Vermont Neighborhood Program that aims to keep development in and around the cities and villages of the state. There are now 23 designated downtowns, 78 designated village centers and a new town center that can receive regulatory relief, increased public investment and tax credits to keep them vibrant. The next thing planners want to do there is bring in more mixed-income housing to those community centers.
In so many towns, villages and cities that have been left for dead there are structures and infrastructure in place that can often be put to new use. But first they have to be refurbished. These projects certainly come with their own set of construction problems but assuming the foundations and basic structures are still sound choosing the right new use for them can make them attractive remodeling projects.
Smart construction pros know that if they get the chance to be involved in one of these projects the opportunities for long-term work increases greatly. The key is to make sure you go into them with your eyes wide open and you do thorough discovery before putting any final costs in place. Of course the utilities are going to be outdated but you are also going to be faced with hazards like asbestos and lead and even old pits of oil that some ancient gas station used as a dumping ground long ago.
All of these things though are manageable, and in fact, as long as you are aware of them part of the creative opportunity is the chance to come up with solutions. The other advantage to these projects is that they are going to create a small number of AEC "experts" at handling them and those experts are going to be sought out for some time to come. Downtown and inner city revitalization is here to stay.
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